study animal behavior - a natural way of leadership building...
After many months, of being forced to be locked inside the #home because of #corona, gradually we are opening up our eyes to see the new world order with a new perspective but with our old, traditional knowledge and wisdom.
My school days are over. I am now home-schooling. So more time to spend doing the things that matter to me, that i love.
The morning stroll, that I used to do every weekend with my Baba will now be more frequent as the pressure of going to school is no more.
The new order, the new learning, the new beginning after the lull.
As my dad sometimes says, was it the lull before the storm?
Let me explain my today’s experience of watching the behavior of a street dog during such a stroll.
I was near a tea stall - the tea stall near the Monginies traffic light. Baba asked me if I would like to have tea and explained that this is the natural way of growing up.
I was not ready. So I refused. Moreover, the fear of the virus has not completely washed away from my psyche and I warned Baba about it.
There I saw a dog, a street dog. i went forward and i saw that he was following us as if he was loving us.
our main objective was to buy milk from the shop.
since i didn't go out for many days (because of Corona), i decided to take a walk and asked my Baba to spend more time on the street the way we used to do earlier. The newly found #freedom.
I went to a place where I used to go. it was a bar (spa?) along with a restaurant, closed as it was pretty early in the morning. As today is Sunday, there was hardly anybody on the streets. my dad blasted some music and I started dancing. and even my dad started dancing. and the dog, which was quiet earlier, became energetic and started chasing some cars. And then my dad told me that it's all about positive energy and hence always being around positive people. Negativity sucks and why I should wisely choose people to mix up in the future.
I asked my dad why was the dog chasing some random car. He told me that the dog must have been hit by a car and the owner didn't even care to stop by and show empathy and care at that time. so the dog has become revengeful.
My dad then told me that if someone becomes revengeful because of being hurt or bad days, and doesn't get any love and care from the people around him, this is exactly what happens.
Then the dog started eating grass.
i asked my dad why was he eating grass?
He told me that he had an upset stomach.
As we went without much preparation like in the earlier days, we didn't have enough change for biscuits.
So we were returning back to the milk shop to get the necessary changes and feed the dog biscuit. The dog was following us.
There my dad started to tell me that the dog is leaving his territory unsafe by following us and while doing so it had probably forgotten that it might cross the boundary of its own territory.
Because these dogs play the power game of keeping their own kingdom and their own area safe and they never let another pack of dogs enter in their territory.
So my dad told me that if you follow someone then don't follow them blindly.
Now suppose you have made a friend from a neighboring country, and then you follow your friend blindly and cross the border. now you'll be interrogated as a bad Indian spy.
so he told me never to follow someone blindly except for my family members. But then again one must keep his eyes and ears open about what he is doing or whom he is following. For family members, you must have the #trust factor intact, and hence it's very important for anyone to be in a safe family. And therefore, if someone’s family betrays him, it will be difficult for him to survive. Because the power to fight the enemy of outside comes and gets regenerated every day from inside #home and #family.
Now suppose, the moment the dog leaves his own territory, the dog will be attacked undoubtedly. He has to accept that he will be attacked the moment he leaves his own territory or what is called his comfort zone.
My dad told me if someone has to be a leader he has to have scratches in his face. These scratches come by fighting in the real battle of life. He cannot stay in his comfort zone all the time. To discover the outside world, one has to leave the comfort zone, and then has to be ready to get the scratches on his face. If after the fight, he wins, then the leader will display all these scratches just as the medals of the military commando as his stories to his next generation.
But always remember, if you get out you of your comfort zone, you will have to be cautious while moving forward and can never let your guard down.
Like my dad, he used to work in a famous Fortune 25 company, all with tremendous smart so-called advanced MBA and management people right at the center of Delhi. But he left and joined the software industry without knowing much about software. He took the risk for a better future for his own and maybe his next generation. And naturally, his fingers were burnt, and his face was scratched by the cruel professional world. He cried. He wept. He mourned. He was broken. He became weak. He was playing around. He lost his natural voice of command. He became someone else far away from his true self. But he had to accept that. And he did. And then he changed the concepts of success. He changed the way he started learning software and my Mom knew it happened when he started going through The Effective C++, The more effective C++, and all the books of that series along with the Design Pattern book. His perspective towards the software was revamped and the engineer was reborn in him.
So we were coming back and then right at the crossing of the Bandhan bank the dog acted cautiously looking left and right and his total behavior changed to more like a cautious one. My dad said, "look at him. He is aware that he has left his territory."
Then I spotted a street puppy dog right almost a few feet away. It started barking after looking at the invader, the dog that was following us.
We started walking towards it Our follower dog became more cautious. The suddenly emerge from the car behind 3 more puppies who barked at him.
Our follower dog started to bark at them with more vigor and the puppies became frightened and ran away.
My dad added, see when the follower became sure that these puppies could not overpower him, he became more aggressive and just cleared the pathway. But he did not harm them which he could have done. So it's important to keep your focus intact in whatever you do. Clear the pathway, remove the swamp, and move forward with an uncluttered mind. Don’t be dissuaded by other unnecessary kinds of stuff in life.
We were walking forward. And then another big fat dog like our follower dog was ahead and he took a stand to gauge the situation. He stood up.
The dog which was following us stood at a faraway distance. Became cautious. Did not show the earlier aggression that he displayed against the weak puppies.
He was first showing his teeth of aggression. But then he started wagging his tail with his teeth inside. The dog which took an aggressive stand in its place mellowed down. After some time, it also started wagging its tail and they both became friends. And our follower dog started agin moving forward.
My dad said, look at the change in the behavior of our followers. From showing his power of aggression against the puppies, he just became cautious and kept a safe distance so that in the worst case he might backtrack or might have to flee, with no instant judging about the enemy’s strength and no vanity about his own power. So we all should be aware of our own limitations. Chest thumping is not the right and wise solution every time. You will never see a commando just jump inside a battle zone without proper planning and study. We all have to be very aware of with whom we are fighting. And how much damage it might cost us. And are we ready to pay the price for it in the worst case?
So look at the change in the behavior of the follower dog in two situations- one against the weak puppies and the one against an equally strong opponent. And it happened naturally without any formal studies. Right? So do you think only humans are intelligent?
While returning, near the Maakaali chicken shop, one old gentleman with a french cut told me that he had to go to ruby which was far away but we didn't have enough change for an auto so we told him to wait and we went to get the milk after that
So after that, we tried to get biscuits from the milk shop but they didn't have parle g which dogs love.so i saw the biscuit shop across the road
Then while we were walking and the dog just stopped before crossing the busy road. He was looking left and right and my dad told me that these dogs don't need any education or traffic sense. All comes naturally for most living creatures. God has already given all of us everything.
So we got the biscuit for the dog and at the spa, I saw that the dog was eating grass.
so i gave the biscuit to the dog and it didn't eat because he knew he had an upset stomach.
nobody taught him that.
just because he listened to his lord shiva or the inner conscience.
so after this, we were going home. we left the main road and entered the lane. The dog sat on the main road wagging his tail but didn't follow us inside the alley.
Dad said that the dog didn't come inside the alley because his line of sight will be lost. and it will stop him to see what was ahead of him far away. and he didn't take the risk because if there is an enemy, which was actually there he would have been badly injured. so there is no shame in backtracking because you have to save yourself or else you will die and then all your efforts are lost.
Line of sight is very important for anybody. Ask a military commando on a mission and he will explain in detail.
in the software profession, my dad started with visual c++. Well, he went into a blind alley and it became almost deadly for him professionally.
That is why he always told me to use open source and hence i am learning c++ using gcc not vc++. we use Linux and all the open-source technologies because my dad learned it through his bad days.
Conclusion
Dad quoted Swami Vivekananda
“Education is the manifestation of the perfection already present in man.”
And he continued, probably that sage got this kind of sense by studying how animals, or in fact any living creatures can automatically do the exact things that we document down and feed our children in the name of education. So probably, every living creature are bestowed with the power and wisdom of #lordshiva.
We, humans actually stop His wisdom with our artificial sense of education and instead of making the pathway clear, we got it cluttered with a limited sense of knowledge and ego.
Let's stop boasting with
punthi pora vida - the bookish knowledge…
